Ten directions

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ten directions (Skt. daśadik [alt. daśa-diś]; T. phyogs bcu; C. shifang; J. jippō; K. sibang 十方). The four cardinal directions along with the four intermediate directions, the zenith (top), and the nadir (bottom).[1][2]

Thus, the ten directions are:[3]

1) ཤར་ east.

2) ལྷོ་ south,

3) ནུབ་ west,

4) བྱང་ north,

5) ཤར་ལྷོ་ south-east,

6) ལྷོ་ནུབ་ south-west,

7) ནུབ་བྱང་ north-west,

8) བྱང་ཤར་ north-east,

9) འོག་ below,

10 ) སྟེང་ above.

The Princeton Dictionary states:

By covering every possible direction, the “ten directions” therefore comes to be used by extension to mean “everywhere,” in the sense of an all-pervasive completeness or comprehensiveness, whether of activities, states, or occurrences.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ ten directions, 84000 Glossary of Terms
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. daśadiś
  3. ↑ phyogs bcu, Christian-Steinert Dictionary